Category: ESG

METRICAL: CG Stock Performance (Japan): July 2022

2022-08-01 posted by

In July, the stock market was supported by the strong U.S. stock market and began to test a return from the second half of the month. The CG Top20, whose components were changed once a year starting this month, continues to outperform over the long term while slightly underperforming against both the TOPIX and JPX400 over the one-month period.

The stock market was firm from the second half of the month as the U.S. market rallied in mid-July on the back of lower long-term interest rates in anticipation of a recession in the U.S. economy. Over the long term since 2014, the CG Top 20 has continued to outperform both indices by about 2% per year. Over the long term since 2014, the CG Top20 continues to outperform both indices by about 2% per annum. The CG Top 20 has been reassessed as of July 1. The new individual stocks are listed in the table below.ly 2022

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METRICAL: Considerations Regarding Retirement of Treasury Stock

2022-08-01 posted by

I am sure you are aware that the number of companies moving to retire treasury stock is gradually increasing due to prime market listing standards. In my previous article, Metrical’s analysis has also revealed that companies that have retired treasury stock three or more times are also more positive in their corporate governance efforts. If share repurchases are a sign that corporate governance initiatives and performance improvement are working in tandem, it is very welcome. I would like to think more about how the actual action taken by the company to retire its own shares relates to corporate governance.

The table below shows the correlation between the frequency of share buybacks and ROE, ROA, and Tobin’s q for the Metrical Universe (as of 1/2022). As shown in the previous article, a highly significant positive correlation between the frequency of share buybacks and ROE and ROA has been confirmed, indicating that the more frequently a company retires its own shares, the higher its ROE and ROA.

This result seems reasonable, because to cancel treasury stock, a company has to buy back its own shares, which has a positive effect on ROE and ROA. On the other hand, the correlation between Tobin’s q and the frequency of share repurchases is not shown to be significant. This means that a company that retires its own shares more frequently does not have a higher stock price valuation, which means that a company that retires its own shares does not have a significant relationship with its stock price valuation. Although the company buys back its own shares before retiring them, this result is also reasonable because the company does not take Tobin’s q (P/B) into account when making its decision to buy back its own shares. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that there is a highly significant positive correlation between the rate of change in market capitalization (12/2021-1/2022) and the frequency of stock repurchases. Even though the frequency of share buybacks is not correlated with respect to stock price premium or discount, it is related to the rate of change in market capitalization over the period 12/2021-1/2022. Over this 13-month period, the more frequent the company’s share retirement (or stock repurchase), the greater the increase in market capitalization. The results show that stock retirement was associated with an increase in market capitalization over this period.

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Hibiki Path Advisors to Tokyo Stock Exchange: Concern about Japanese Companies and the Japanese Stock Market

2022-07-15 posted by

This article (letter to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (cc: portfolio companies) is posted by BDTI on behalf of Yuya Shimizu, Hibiki Path Advisors Pte. Ltd. **************************************************************************** [English translation of a letter sent by Hibiki Path Advisors to Tokyo Stock Exchange] To: Yamaji Hiromi, President & CEO 2-1 Nihombashi Kabutocho, Chuo-ku Tokyo 103-8220 Japan Tokyo Stock […]

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METRICAL: CG Stock Performance (Japan): June 2022

2022-07-12 posted by

June stock market also ended the month with direction-less trading, after large swings up and down led by the U.S. stock market. The CG Top 20 stock index largely outperformed while both the TOPIX and JPX400 indexes declined.

After falling in mid-June on the back of the U.S. stock prices decline due to a rise in the U.S. CPI, Japan’s market was expected to continue its rebound phase in the second half of the month due to a sense of buying on declining.
While both TOPIX and JPX400 weakened -2.08% and -2.42% in June respectively, the CG Top 20 rose +1.03% and outperformed both indices significantly.

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The Other Side of the Coin – Changes in Japanese Equity Price Formation From 2000-2021

2022-05-12 posted by
by David Snoddy, CEO of Nezu Asia
SUMMARY

The nature of Japan’s relationship with equity market capitalism changed significantly from the first decade to the second of the 21st century. The first decade, particularly after the resignation of PM Koizumi in 2006, was often characterized by open conflict, with the most obvious examples being the arrest and conviction of shareholder activists Horie and Murakami, and the legal and regulatory attacks on both the consumer finance and leveraged real estate businesses (among others). However, approximately around 2011, the attitude of both government and the public morphed into something more resembling symbiosis than conflict. In the third decade of this century the symbiosis mode seems still to be ascendant.

Many of the top-down aspects of this shift have been well documented and discussed both in Japan and in the West – from the 2015 Corporate Code, to the 2014 Fiduciary Code and the emerging catalysts created by the rule set for Tokyo’s new “Prime” market. From the perspective of governance per se, there have been some concrete steps “backwards” (with the Toshiba drama a prime example). However, the cumulative effect of the change in the regulatory suasion regime in Japan is such that it is difficult to find equity market participants who believe that the governance environment in 2021, on average, is not noticeably more shareholder-friendly than it was 10 years ago.

Over the same period there has also been a dramatic shift in trends in Japanese equity price formation. This is not well documented or understood. But it is in fact the micro expression of the same impulses which are driving the “macro” changes in the regulatory regime. Since 2011, there has been a marked change in how the market “votes with its feet” – rewarding companies who conform to the new desired profile, and punishing those who don’t. Specifically, capital efficiency and, to a slightly lesser extent, revenue growth, have captured outsized returns.

The top-down changes in the regulatory regime are on one side of the coin. The bottom-up changes in price formation are the other side of the same coin.

The socio-economic function of equity capitalism in Japan is somewhat uncomfortably positioned between two massive sources of pressure. On the one hand, the aging of Japan’s society is slowly turning active employees into pensioners who, either directly or indirectly, depend on financial income to maintain their living standards. This economic pressure provides the core motivation for the changes in Japan’s approach to equity capitalism – both from the top and the bottom. One the other hand, there is a near-consensus social desire to protect and maintain the lifetime employment system, albeit only for a subset of employees. Predictably, these two pressures are often in conflict, which accounts for some of the peculiarities of “equity capitalism with Japanese characteristics.”

The social commitment to maintain the lifetime employment system predates all of the data to be presented here. The demographic challenges posed by the aging of society have been building for a generation or so, but it was only after 2011 that they resulted in a shift towards a noticeably more cooperative approach to equity markets.

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Managing Human Resources in the Age of VUCA and Diversity — Advice from Levent Arabaci, Former CTRO at Hitachi

2022-04-13 posted by

Japan has created a council to consider a “new form of capitalism”, stating that it aims to lead in the areas of “sustainability and human capital”. At the same time, the corporate governance code states that “in light of the importance of human resource strategies …companies should present their policies for human resource development and the internal environment development to ensure diversity.” Abroad, foreign companies continue to compete globally based on constantly refining their systems for managing HR, attracting and developing talent, and drawing on diversity as a source of competitive advantage.

Here in Japan, Hitachi has been a leader in this area under the leadership of the late CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi and Levent Arabaci, who until recently served as Chief Transformation Officer (CTRO) for Global Operations, and previously was the EVP of Human Resources starting in 2012.

In this webinar, Mr. Arabaci will describe the range of modern HR practices that Hitachi has put in place during the past 10 years, spanning areas such as talent mapping, career planning and development, performance evaluations, practices for promotions, and increases in diversity. BDTI Representative Director Nicholas Benes will interview Mr. Arabaci to identify the biggest challenges Hitachi has faced, and to reveal his concrete advice as to how other Japanese companies can overcome similar challenges.

Next, we will be joined by Takeo Yamaguchi (ex-Hitachi) and Christiane Iwanoff of Olympus, two persons with extensive experience at HR management. The panel participants will share their experiences and perspectives, will consider additional issues that have arisen in recent years, such as the impact of WFH, addressing work-life balance, and building more diverse, innovative organizations.

Date:     　　　 June 1, 2022(Wed.)  12:00-14:30

Location:         Zoom Web Conference

Charge: 　　    Free

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“Oasis Announces “Women’s Director Training Scholarship” Initiative for International Women’s Day in Cooperation with BDTI of Japan” (Press Release)

2022-03-07 posted by

(Text of the Press Release)

Investment firm Oasis to sponsor board director training courses through The Board Director Training Institute of Japan for all qualified women who enroll in March.

March 8, 2022, TOKYO – In honor of International Women’s Day, Oasis Management Company Ltd. (“Oasis”) and the Board Director Training Institute of Japan (“BDTI”) have announced a new month-long initiative to sponsor board director training courses for women.

Throughout the month of March 2022, Oasis will pay all costs for qualified women who enroll to take any of BDTI’s director training courses as described below. These Japanese and English-language training programs have been designed by leading experts in Japan to prepare candidates to serve as directors or executive officers in Japan.

The goal of the initiative is to equip highly qualified women leaders with the skills and training needed to succeed as board directors, and to proactively address the imbalance in board gender diversity in Japan by expanding the pipeline of board-ready women director candidates.

“Improving gender diversity on boards in Japan by adding qualified female directors is something we are focused on and believe will improve governance and competitiveness at Japanese companies,” Seth Fischer, the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Oasis said. “We strongly encourage all women who are interested to take advantage of this opportunity to access BDTI’s excellent director education programs.”

“Capable, trained female directors bring significant benefits to Japanese boards and companies. We applaud Oasis’s leadership,” Nicholas Benes, BDTI Representative Director, said.

For further information, please contact BDTI at info@bdti.or.jp or 81-3-6432-2337.

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METRICAL: Diversity Has To Be Strong

2021-09-01 posted by

This month, we will focus on diversity again. This is because I believe that diversity raises the bottom line of a company. Diversity is deeply related to S and G of ESG, and it has a great impact on the transformation of a company’s culture. On the other hand, it seems that many Japanese companies are more keen on “E” than “S” and “G” in their ESG initiatives, because “E” is an area that is relatively easy to tackle for Japanese companies that have a successful experience of setting technical numerical targets such as CO2 emission targets and improving the technical level through bottom-up efforts led by engineers to eventually achieve high targets. Even in the S and G areas, it should be possible to set clear goals and set timeframes for improvement without setting numerical targets. In several articles on diversity, I have mentioned the importance of respect for human rights, or in other words, understanding diversity, in order to build an environment where everyone can live comfortably, whether in a company or a society where various people are involved. On Thursday, August 19, I attended the analyst meeting of Monogatari Corporation (3097), which is engaged in advanced diversity initiatives as mentioned in my previous article, to discuss its financial results for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, and I would like to update you on the company’s diversity initiatives.

Monogatari Corporation is one of the listed companies that is proactively working on diversity. As of June 2021, the company had 126 employees from 13 countries (10% of the total workforce), an increase from 105 employees from 11 countries (9.5% of the total workforce) as of December 2020. In the past six months, the number of store managers with international (foreign) nationality has increased significantly from 4 to 18. In addition, the company is also working to support the activities of LGBTQ employees, with training for all employees starting with basic knowledge and how to respond in the workplace and sharing the idea of understanding and supporting all sexualities. Also, the company has introduced a “Life Partnership System” that allows same-sex partners to receive the same treatment as legal marriages within the company. In Japan, where same-sex marriage is not yet legally recognized, this system allows LGBTQ employees to receive the same treatment as legally married couples in the company.

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“Carbonwashing: A New Type of Carbon Data-related ESG Greenwashing” (Young and Schumacher)

2021-07-30 posted by

“ Despite the increased attention and capital incentives around corporate sustainability, the development of sustainability reporting standards and monitoring systems has been progressing at a slow pace. As a result, companies have misaligned incentives to deliberately or selectively communicate information not matched with actual environmental impacts or make largely unsubstantiated promises around future ambitions. These incidents are broadly called “greenwashing,” but there is no clear consensus on its definition and taxonomy. We pay particular attention to the threat of greenwashing concerning carbon emission reductions by coining a new term, “carbonwashing.” Since carbon mitigation is the universal goal, the corporate carbon performance data supply chain is relatively more advanced than that of the entire sustainability data landscape. Nonetheless, the threat of carbonwashing persists, even far more severe than general greenwashing due to the financial values attached to corporate carbon performance. This paper contextualizes sustainable finance-related carbonwashing via an outline of the communication as well as the measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) of carbon emission mitigation performance. Moreover, it proposes several actionable policy recommendations on how industry stakeholders and government regulators can reduce carbonwashing risks.”

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Japan’s Corporate Governance Revolution: Halfway Through the Tunnel (Equities First/Nasdaq Report)

2021-05-10 posted by

Over the past six years Japan has put in place a long list of corporate governance reforms, amounting to a virtual revolution in thinking at corporations, domestic institutional investment firms, and even society. However, because Japan is still only halfway through the “tunnel” of reform and thinking, much of the resulting value creation for investors and other stakeholders is yet to come. Key takeaways from this whitepaper’s data-driven review of Japan’s governance “revolution” include:

Tangible corporate governance reform has come to Japan, in the form of a robust Corporate Governance Code and Stewardship Code.
In tandem with government policy, advocacy by investor groups and pro-governance corporate leaders will continue these positive reforms in the years to come.
Japanese firms have “got the message” that a sea change has occurred: a majority of firms are hiring outside directors, establishing nominations and compensation committees, and reducing takeover defenses such as poison pills.
Japanese boards are starting to embrace global trends for incentive-based compensation, higher levels of diversity, and focus on returns and capital efficiency.
Cross-shareholdings and other “allegiant holdings” are being unwound as foreign and domestic institutions alike have become more proactive in their proxy voting strategies, making the market more attractive in general.
Merger and Acquisitions (M&As) and activism are on the rise, raising capital efficiency or managerial awareness of the need for it.
As a result of many of the above changes, Return on Assets (ROA) values in Japan are trending higher across the board.

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